Press Release 

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£6,000 awarded to Cookham Dean Football Club to improve the quality of grass football pitches at Lower Mount Farm, Cookham 
Cookham Dean Football Club has been awarded a grant of £6,000 from the Premier League, The FA and Government’s Football Foundation, to maintain the new pitches at Lower Mount Farm, Cookham. 
 
The £6,000 six-year tapered grant, part of the Foundation’s Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund, will help Cookham Dean Football Club to improve the quality of the grass pitches at Lower Mount Farm, Long Lane, Cookham. 
 
The investment was provided following the completion of a pitch inspection using PitchPower – the Football Foundation’s specially developed web app used for assessing the quality of grass football pitches. Cookham Dean Football Club will now be able to use the grant to complete the maintenance work identified in their PitchPower Assessment Report, which includes applying fertiliser, aeration, seeding and other maintenance practices. 
 
These grants are key to the Foundation’s aim to deliver 20,000 ‘good’ quality grass pitches by 2030. Alongside PitchPower, the Football Foundation has also created an online Groundskeeping Community to provide expert support and advice to clubs. Anyone in Berks & Bucks can find out more and sign up at footballfoundation.org.uk. 
Jim Bennet, Chairman of Cookham Dean Football Club said: 
“this grant will go a long way to help us provide quality pitches for our teams at all age groups.” 
Robert Sullivan, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: 
“This Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund grant award to Cookham Dean Football Club is vital for the local community in Cookham. Together, with our Funding Partners – The Premier League, The FA and Government – we’re on a mission to transform the quality of grass pitches in England. Our Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund is vital to support clubs across the country, helping them enhance and sustain their pitches to improve access to good quality facilities for grassroots players.” 
 
“Better quality grass pitches mean fewer postponements and more opportunities to play; part of our wider ambition to help unlock the power of pitches and get more people involved in sport, regardless of their background, age or ability.” 
The Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund provides eligible clubs and leagues with a tapered six-year grant to help them sustain pitches already at a 'good' level or higher and enhance pitches that are either considered 'poor' or 'basic'. The Football Foundation is the UK’s largest sports charity and exists to improve the experience of playing football for everyone, by championing fair access to quality facilities. 
For more information, please contact: 
Notes to editors 
About the Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund 
 
Opened on 15 March 2021 as part of the Football Foundation’s ‘Game On’ campaign, this fund provides eligible clubs, leagues and organisations six-year tapered grants to improve the quality of grass pitches. These grants form a key part in the Foundation’s ‘Power Up Your Grass Pitch’ campaign and its commitment to deliver 20,000 ‘good’ quality grass pitches in the next ten years. 
About the Football Foundation 
 
The Premier League, The FA and Government’s Football Foundation is the largest sports charity in the UK. It champions and supports fair access to quality football facilities for everyone, regardless of gender, race, disability or place. 
 
The Foundation receives money from the Premier League, The FA and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, through Sport England. This is matched with partnership funding and awarded as grants to create outstanding grassroots facilities that enable better games and attract more players, helping to transform communities. 
 
Since 2000, it has awarded more than 21,860 grants to improve facilities worth more than £813m – including 996 artificial grass pitches, 9,612 natural grass pitches and 1,258 changing facilities. This has attracted an additional £1bn of partnership funding – totalling over £1.8bn investment in grassroots football so far. 
 
Through the Foundation, the Premier League, The FA, DCMS and Sport England have come together to create Local Football Facility Plans for every area in England. They identify priority projects where demand is greatest, and the impact will be strongest. They will guide work and stimulate the action required to deliver them over the next 10 years to transform many more local facilities. 
 
Visit footballfoundation.org.uk for more information on the Foundation. 
About Pitch Power 
 
‘PitchPower’ is a web app that gives every community football club and organisation in the country the ability to carry out their own grass pitch inspections, providing fast and accurate data which is less time intensive and more efficient than in person inspections. Once an inspection is submitted, Regional Pitch Advisers at the Grounds Management Association produce an assessment report with bespoke advice and recommendations to improve the grass pitch quality at a site. 
 
By using this tool more widely, the Football Foundation anticipates it will be able to carry out as many as 20,000 inspections a year, five times as many as in the past. 
 
Once inspections have been completed via the PitchPower app, clubs and facilities are then eligible to apply for funding from the Football Foundation to support pitch improvements identified through the app. 
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